One junction, one camera, £182,340

One junction, one camera, £182,340

September 06, 2010 12:43 PM

Thanks to my colleagues at our sister organisation Big Brother Watch, a very interesting response to a Freedom of Information request came to my attention this morning. The request asks how much money was obtained in fines from a camera placed on one junction (Forest Road E17 and Winsbeach E17) catching drivers that were turning left when traffic access was restricted at certain times of the day.

Waltham Forest Council responded that between 10.12.08 and 11.12.09, 3039 tickets were issued at a value of £182,340. So, one camera, in one year, at one junction made the council almost £200,000. This means that on average around 8 tickets were issued per day.

The high volume of tickets issued would strongly suggest that road signs informing drivers of the road restrictions are not clear enough. In short the system of restricting traffic flows at certain time of the day is just unnecessarily complicated and hawkisly enforced by a camera.

And yet councils still insist that traffic restrictions are never set up to make money from motorists. In this particular case the council stated that “the traffic restrictions at the Forest Road/Winsbeach junction were applied not to resolve a traffic issue at that particular junction, but to reduce the amount of through traffic in the adjoining area where accidents have occurred.”

Therefore drivers were not being fined for turning left on a junction because it was dangerous they were being fined because they were joining an area where accidents had occurred. Wouldn’t it make more sense to assess the area that had experienced accidents rather than fining drivers for a manoeuvre that was not in itself dangerous?

But if they did that the council would not have obtained £182,340 from motorists would they.

Thanks to my colleagues at our sister organisation Big Brother Watch, a very interesting response to a Freedom of Information request came to my attention this morning. The request asks how much money was obtained in fines from a camera placed on one junction (Forest Road E17 and Winsbeach E17) catching drivers that were turning left when traffic access was restricted at certain times of the day.

Waltham Forest Council responded that between 10.12.08 and 11.12.09, 3039 tickets were issued at a value of £182,340. So, one camera, in one year, at one junction made the council almost £200,000. This means that on average around 8 tickets were issued per day.

The high volume of tickets issued would strongly suggest that road signs informing drivers of the road restrictions are not clear enough. In short the system of restricting traffic flows at certain time of the day is just unnecessarily complicated and hawkisly enforced by a camera.

And yet councils still insist that traffic restrictions are never set up to make money from motorists. In this particular case the council stated that “the traffic restrictions at the Forest Road/Winsbeach junction were applied not to resolve a traffic issue at that particular junction, but to reduce the amount of through traffic in the adjoining area where accidents have occurred.”

Therefore drivers were not being fined for turning left on a junction because it was dangerous they were being fined because they were joining an area where accidents had occurred. Wouldn’t it make more sense to assess the area that had experienced accidents rather than fining drivers for a manoeuvre that was not in itself dangerous?

But if they did that the council would not have obtained £182,340 from motorists would they.

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